Reports: Boston bombing suspect buried in Virginia

WASHINGTON – The suspected Boston Marathon bomber killed in a gun battle with police has been buried in Virginia.

The Boston Globe reports Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried at the Al-Barzakh Cemetery in Doswell, a community near Richmond.

Tsarnaev’s body was released by the medical examiner May 1, but cemeteries refused to take his remains. With costs to protect the funeral home mounting, Worcester, Mass., police earlier appealed for help finding a place to bury Tsarnaev and said on Thursday that in response “a courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased.”

The Globe reports a Virginia woman approached Islamic Funeral Services of Virginia, which the paper says is associated with the Islamic Society of Greater Richmond, to help bury Tsarnaev. A burial plot was secured and the body transferred.

The Tsarnaevs’ uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Maryland, took responsibility for the body after Tamerlan’s wife, Katherine Russell, said she wanted the body released to her in-laws.

Tsarni said Tsarnaev was buried in Doswell, though he would not say more about the faith coalition that helped.

“The body’s buried. That’s it,” he said.

Doswell, in Caroline County, is home to Kings Dominion amusement park and is the birthplace of racehorse Secretariat.

Caroline County Administrator Charles M. Culley, Jr., said in a statement Friday that the county had not been consulted on the decision to bury Tsarnaev in Doswell.

“We had no advanced notice of the decision and unfortunately learned of the selection of a burial site through the media,” Culley said in the statement. “We would much prefer to be associated with positive news reports from the national media, but unfortunately had no say in the matter.”

Tsarnaev was killed April 19 in a getaway attempt after a gun battle with police. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, was captured later and remains in custody.

Tsarnaev was pronounced dead at a hospital in Boston, where he could have been buried under state law, because the city was his place of death. But Boston officials said they wouldn’t take the body because Tsarnaev lived in Cambridge, and Cambridge also refused.

His mother also said Russia refused to allow his body into the country so she could bury him in her native Dagestan, but Russian authorities would not comment on that contention.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Follow @WTOP on Twitter.